GAYLETTER

This is a serious and moving film about the AIDS quilt, and it is only fitting that it will be released on December 1 on iTunes — World AIDS Day — so we will not soon forget that this epidemic is still in our midst. The film is about this extraordinary international art project born in the eighties out of a need to physically express grief for those passing from AIDS and to wage a worldwide battle for greater treatment and understanding for the disease. I went to Washington D.C. in 1987 when the quilt was first laid down in front of the capitol on the National Mall and will NEVER forget its visual and social impact. In brief, “The Last One examines how stigma exacerbated and still fuels a disease that currently infects 34 million men and women and children around the globe including 50,000 new infections a year in the U.S. alone.” Wow, that’s a lot of numbers to digest, let me add this last one — 30 million lives have been lost to AIDS.

Remembrance, Warmth, Comfort and Love are the themes the quilt was born out of, a beautiful graveyard of sorts, each panel like a tombstone eloquently remembering one who was lost to AIDS. Please take a moment to remember those who perished and those still battling the disease and watch this film, it will give back to you ten fold.

Available on iTunes to rent or buy